adwords doesn't like thin landing pages but I have success with them on msn and yahoo. knowing the type that will work best takes a bit of testing as different offers have different types of people looking for them.
how can you stay competitive? have better ads. you will have to pay a higher cpc to start but if you break down your ad groups into keyword groups and target the ads to the keywords it will help increase your ctr which over time will decrease your cpc.
landing pages help because they sell your product for you. would you rather buy something if you heard about something offhand and went straight to the offer page or would you rather buy if you hit a good page telling you how awesome the product is and that if you don't buy it you just won't be able to go on living...you know what i mean...
as for offers, different offers convert for different people..what do you think YOU can promote well? mad people make bank of things like acai but I'm pretty sure I would not have the success they have, and they have been running cpc for a while so their cpc would probably make me cry with jealousy.
try and fail and learn and try again and succeed...maybe?
Thank you for the detailed response. I have also read a 80 page guide on the basics and really kicking myself for not investing more time into SE marketing. Before, I really didn't take Adwords seriously but now I am beginning to see that it's absolutely essential.
My quesition begins with ad groups you mentioned. In the book I was reading earlier, it says I have to have 2 ads runnign for "split testing". Throw out the one with lower CTR. Does this mean, 2 ads per ad groups targeting a list of keywords for this group ? Could I have overlapping keywords in both groups ? How would you go about finding subtopic keywords ? should I buy Keyword Elite (I realized after reading that free guide, I suddenly had a mysterious urge to purchase Keyword Elite whereas before I passed up on it). Speaking of keyword research, which free tools are commonly used ?
Is Result/Search ratio a reliable way to gauge the potential profitability of the keyword ? What other metrics or ratios are commonly used by experts ?
Right now my main concern is: How to find profitable keywords for the offer and building landing pages.
would profitable keywords be something you speculate (kind of like buying stocks) ?
For landing pages, how does giving out free reports convert into sales ? So a user clicks and downloads the pdf report on say "how to set up home theater" and after reading it, they would be inclined to purchase your home theater system ? How can you ask for a sale without coming across as blunt ?
Thanks again, I am realizing serious mistakes with my campaigns in the past. I was using broad matchm, didn't use negative keywords, didn't have search keywords in my ad, poorly written ad, and didn't have proper landing pages. worst, I was redirecting to main page and didn't realize it was possible to outplace via CTR ( so does google still rewards higher performing ads ?).